Empathic Bullying

Steven Saus injects people with radioactivity as his day job, but only to serve the forces of good. His work has appeared in multiple anthologies and magazines both online and off. He also publishes as Alliteration Ink. You can find him at stevensaus.com and alliterationink.com.

I’ve seen employees (in places I was visiting) claim that a co-worker’s easy listening CD was “offensive”. While that’s kind of funny (though the accusation was serious), I heard from another employee who was told they were being offensive and threatening for pointing out safety violations.1 The objection was not that the accusation was wrong, but that someone dared point it out.

When one violates social norms – whether you are correct in doing so or not – you will experience pushback. I distinctly remember my father telling me that having long hair as a male (in 1990 West Virginia) would cause me problems socially. I remember complaining bitterly about it, and he agreed that it wasn’t fair and wasn’t right. But it was something that I would have to deal with.

There’s a balance that has to be struck here, especially when you’ve entered into someone else’s space. Enter a classroom – even a yoga classroom – and you’re tactility agreeing to the teacher’s rules. Sign up for a college class, and you’re agreeing to be evaluated on the basis of your fulfilling of the rubric.

Using the terms of empathy and emotion in order to excuse your transgressions is still bullying, no matter how many fluffy feel-good words you dress it up in.